Javanese surfer Diki Zulfikar was with his friends and wife celebrating the closing ceremony of the Carita Beach Surf Festival when the first giant wave approached, which caused the destruction of his city on December 22, he told Surfline.

At first Zulfikar and his friends thought it was a new swell and were happy. “But then, when the wave didn’t stop and kept getting bigger, four meters bigger, we knew. We all wished we had our boards, but we didn’t bring them to the party,” the surfer said. He and his friends started running while they saw motorbikes, bicycles and cars floating around them. At that moment, the second wave started to form. “I saw it coming and I don’t know why, but I smiled at the wave, as if I smile at the waves, but hoping that it would leave my wife and me in peace,” the surfer said.

But that didn’t happen, instead he and his wife went to a hut and rode to the top. “And that’s when I saw the third wave maybe I knew my luck had run out,” Zulfikar said in his account. The wave came into the hut but didn’t reach them. “Later, the nearby river seemed to be helping drain the water and we survived, but a lot of people were being pulled out to sea. So many, thank God, my friends and I will be able to surf again,” the surfer reflected.

Carita Beach is located in West Java, one of the places most affected by the Tsunami that is believed to have been created by the eruption of a volcano. So far, there are 430 dead and 159 in total, according to Agencia EFE. Houses, hotels and boats were also damaged.

Indonesia's volcanology agency (PVMBG) has raised the alert level for Krakatoa from 3 to 4. Several flights in the region have also been cancelled due to the cloud of ash and smoke.